Tuesday, December 18, 2012

This Is What a Culture of Guns and Violence Looks Like

The man who is advocating gun culture is Louie Gohmert, a Republican member of the United States Congress representing the 1st Congressional District of Texas. Gun control will never be successful as long as a substantial number of Americans think like this. Gohmert won the last election (Nov. 2012) with 72% of the vote.

Change the culture. Violence is never the answer and more violence will never fix the problem. Change the culture and gun control automatically follows, as in most other countries. It's unlikely that tweaking a few gun laws will make much of a difference as long as everyone thinks it's okay to act like a gun-toting vigilante.

47 comments
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Guns are used to kill people, the important bit? Some nut job pulled the trigger, will less guns make it any better? Nope here in South Africa the criminals have guns and the citizens don't who do you think is winning Larry? Then even if you take all the guns away you'll get the following.... This happened on the same day as Sandy Hook btw.....

People are evil Larry and because we know what evil is we also know what good is.... so keep your head in the San. So if we take all the guns away, all the knives... Then you'll read of some twenty kids killed with a rock.... People kill people Larry, not guns, not knives, and not rocks....

Guns are bad in the wrong hands but what you don't get is that they don't kill people, people kill people with or without guns. There is also a reason why they do that, they have no hope life is meaningless, when you are some random chance accident how could it have any meaning? One last time Larry.... people kill people say it with me.

Yes Eddie, if its not a gun, its a knife, if its not a knife its a rock and when we outlaw them all it will be with bare hands...... what's your point that trying to kill people is not really as bad as killing them or are you saying a knife is less of a weapon? What are you saying Sean Eddy?

I'm saying that all those Chinese parents still have their children. Yes, not killing children is better than killing children. Yes, knives and rocks and bare hands are less lethal weapons. Guns make it obscenely easy for an impulsive or irrational act to have fatal consequences.

"Guns don't kill people people kill people" is one of the dumbest mantras I ever heard. Do you really think arming the citizenry reduces violent crime? How's that doing in the States?

If you get angry, or go off the deep end, and there is a gun to hand and you use it, you will most likely kill. A rock, however? Jesus. Cue the next mass-school killing by someone armed with a fucking rock.

In my country there is no easy access to firearms. There are plenty of stones lying about, and no, they are not used in mass school killings. Actually, no mass killing has happened in Poland since I was born -- not by a deranged individual anyway (the riot police shooting at protesters in 1970 and 1981 was a different matter). The homicide rate is similar to that in France (ca 1.1 per 100,000). I would hardly feel safer if I owned a gun.

To me it is quite clear that it is not only the a persons intention to kill that kills it is the weaponry at his disposal that desides how succesfull he is. Things had gone a lot worse in the Chinese incident if the crazy person had an assult rifle!

Just for a second try to play with the thought that Adam Lanza had some sort of nuclear bomb at his hands ....

As things stand now, there is some merit to what Gohmert says. Even if gun ownership was outlawed, guns will always be available like booze was available during the Prohibition period. Have a look at this story:

You need to stop thinking that meeting violence with more violence will ever solve the problem. You need to stop being proud of the fact that you're willing to carry a gun and use it to kill someone. That's exactly the kind of thinking that produces the gunman in the mall in the first place.

If I knew that you were carrying a gun in a mall and were willing to use it whenever you feel threatened, I would want to shop somewhere else. You represent more of a threat to me than a potential mass murderer.

Pépé, there's a significant difference between the long-term planning mass murderer, who probably has some severe mental health issue, and the more general crime-of-passion-in-the-moment kind of guy.

Simply owning and carrying around a gun can make the difference between a guy snapping and being thrown to jail for assault, or snapping and shooting several people. In a culture where most people have easy access to guns, you'll get more deaths due to the "suddenly snaps in a rage"-guy carrying a weapon intentionally designed to make it easy to kill other human beings from a distance, pretty much at "the click of a button".

There's no good excuse to have everyone carrying around guns. Yes, organised crimiminals like gangs and mafia will be able to get guns outside the normal routes, and so will the psycho's who plan to murder people over the long term if they are sufficiently persistent. But you'll STILL get a substantial reduction in murders due to gun-related violence, in a culture where people don't all own guns. There really is no way around this logic, and i't supported by the statistics.

The John-Wayne picture of ordinary citizens never committing gun-violence due to crimes of passion, but being somehow the "guardians" of the general population against organised criminals and psychos is simply not an accurate reflection of reality. It doesn't happen.

In countries and states where more people have easy access to and own guns, you get more deaths due to gun-related violence. Time to face the facts and simple logic of culture, society and human nature. We don't need the populace to carry around weapons designed for killing other human beings. The only thing you get, is more dead people.

I started my comment with "As things stand now" because mass murders are still occuring, despite gun control.

Richard Henry Bain, who shot two men and killed one when elected PM Marois was giving her acceptance speech, had all his weapons duly registered. If his assault rifle had not malfunctioned God only knows how many more he would have killed. Canada has very strict gun control laws but that has not prevented the École Polytechnique, Dawson or Metropolis shootings. Dr. Fabrikant had a license for the gun he used to kill four and wound another in the Concordia University massacre.

Larry, if you feel more threaten by a gun carrying sane person then by a deranged mass murderer you must be scared as hell when you see a police officer.

Some talk about gun-free zones, where mass murderer go because they know they won't have any opposition. Should all gun-free zones, schools, malls, restaurants, etc.. have arm guards to protect the public?

Pépé, you're simply engaging in ad-hoc reasoning. There are less murders due to gun-related violence in countries and states with stricter gun control, whether they are spur of the moment gun-violence of planned mass-murders by lifetime psychos.

If you make it harder to get to a gun, you make it less likely that a person who will at some point get into a state of mind where they intend to harm or kill, will own a gun. It's elementary logic and it's manifestly reflected in the statistics.

You're making up silly excuses and ad-hoc scenarios in order to try to rethorically circumvent what is an empirical fact. It really is the case that more guns = more deaths.

John Wayne doesn't exist, and he doesn't patrol your local mall. Deal with the facts.

Clearly, the goal must be to reduce the number of deaths? Given that the statistics unambigously tell us that you get less deaths with fewer guns, the logical conclusion is to reduce the number of guns in the population.

Logic 101. Empirical facts from the real world > rethoric and hypotheticals.

There's more to gun-control than requiring registration. How about not having a gun-infested culture with gun-shops in every town and city to begin with?

Rumraket, you are asking the wrong question. The question isn't "will gun-related violence be reduced if guns are eliminated". Yes that's logical, but its almost tautologial, and therefore useless. The question is "will violence, per se, be reduced if guns are eliminated?", and the data does NOT support that claim. What the data shows is that gun violence, like pretty much all violence, is mostly isolated among one demographic group: low income, low education, young males. Taking guns out of their hands wil reduce violence. Taking guns away from well-off, elderly women? Not so much.

First of all, if my argument is logical, and so obviously true it's "almost" tautological, then surely it isn't useless?

As I said, the ultimatel goal is to reduce deaths, I hope you agree? Then if strict gun control and a much less gun-glorifying culture is a strong step in that direction, why not take it?

Another point about violence in general, I made no insinuations that reductions in gunviolence automatically entails a reduction in total amount, or all kinds of violence, and I fundamentally disagree that that is the question we should ask. ("will violence, per se, be reduced if guns are eliminated?")

Though, it seems entirely plausible to me that, if you can reduce gunviolence, that is itself a step towards reducing total violence. That's not to say it's a one-step fix-all solution, I have no illusions with regards to whether there's some magic single solution. There's not, so let's just get that out of the way and stop pursuing that strawman.

Instead of these endless theoretical discussions which ultimately turn out to be rethorical digressions, let's start working to reduce gunviolence by reducing the number of guns, and stop glorifying gun-ownership and gun-culture.

And the thing about well-off, elderly women? I don't see any merit in your point. Within any arbitrary demographic you will find two extremes at each end, the most and least likely to commit gunviolence among gunowners. That's not a good excuse to reduce gunviolence, and seemt to imply we should start discriminating on the basis of income, education and sex? What's next, ethnicity? How about we be fair and just try to reduce the number of guns across the board and in the process manage to reduce GUN-violence?

Dear person who supports guns but is too cowardly to post comments under her real name (i.e. Anonymous).

I'm going to say this one more time in simple words that even you might be able to understand.

The solution to the problem of gun violence lies in changing the culture from one that glorifies vigilantes to one that abhors violence of all kinds.

If you live in a non-violent society then everyone could own a gun and you still wouldn't have high murder rates. If you live in a society that condones, and even admires, gun violence, then banning guns will not work.

Larry.... Well geez I thought you would have figured it out.... stop telling people that they are purposeless accidents that have no meaning! (I can understand why you would want guns to go away after telling people that) you see in my country a few white guys decided to tell a few black guys that that they were not quite as evolved and where in fact lower species of humans, who inspired them with this tripe? Does the name Charles Darwin perhaps ring a bell Larry? You did read Descent of man right? Or On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Did you read both Larry? Are you going to tell me outright that Charles Darwin was in fact not a racist? How about those Negro ears that looks like a Gorilla’s?Of course you'll just say I'm lying or I'm stupid or both! In my country where human beings were degraded to lower life forms actually speak volumes about the influence Charles Darwin had on the mind of the men that thought themselves better than others. Much like atheists do these days thinking they hold some intellectual position and everybody else is just stupid! People are killing each other because they have no hope and telling them every day that they are not worth anything will not make the problem go away! You are right there should be a culture change, stop telling people they don’t actually mean jack or shit and take some time to tell them how wonderful they are, how complex they are and how unique each one is!

Oh and if you want me to post on my own name remove the option to post anonymously, you can't enable it and then complain about it when people do!

I could of course go on a rant and tell you how the people that have been treated like animals might feel, but at the end of the day its your choice to follow a religion created by a racist theologian that new diddly squat about biology.

Just as in much of the rest of life, you have the freedom to act like a horse's patoot here. Doing so and then blaming it on someone else seems rather weak to me. Aren't you in favor of people taking responsibility for their own actions? Or does it foster irresponsible behavior and immorality to be able to do anything at all, then say the magic words and be Saved?

This "gun culture" may be a manifestation of a broader ideology of domination that is particularly influential among American Republicans. They think that the solution to crime in to outgun criminals; their solution to crime is also to lock up anyone who steps out of line (e.g. drug laws); their solution to war is global mililtary deployment and pre-emptive war.

I would love for that ideology to die. Maybe if it died, gun control/prohibition would be seen as a trivial administrative issue. However, the reduction of violence by civilians would only be a minor benefit -- the main benefit would be from the reduction of state violence.

Why do people want to kill people? Isn't that the question? Why does anyone think that removing the tools will remove the motivation? Why do so many mass murders occur in "gun-free" zones? I think we should make murder, rape, lying, stealing, and breaking others' property illegal. That will solve all those problems if we just make them illegal. Because criminals follow laws. --Signed Anonymous because I came to this blog to read about something aside from gun control, but I'm not coming back. Ridiculous.

IMO, the entire gun issue is overblown by emotions on both sides. Gun homicides account for about 11,000 homicides a year in the US, or roughly one person out of 30,000, and sorry, but even if we magically eliminated guns that figure would not crash to zero. Hardly an epidemic worthy of so much of our time when there are so many bigger social and political fish to fry.

That's about 68% of all homicides where a weapon of any type, including fists and feet, was reported to have been used. A gun is a really good quick way to turn a fight or beating into a murder. That's why people use them for that purpose (duh). It would be very nice if people had a more difficult time killing each other, don't you think?

I'd love to hear some good ideas about just *how* to go about changing the culture. There, it seems to me, is the rub.

Leaving statistics aside, we should spend time and money (and we have plenty of each) to reduce all preventable deaths, including more than 100,000 annual deaths in US alone caused by hospital associated infections.

reduce all preventable deaths, including more than 100,000 annual deaths in US alone caused by hospital associated infections

Of them, 30,000 deaths are from sepsis. The most common cause of medically introduced sepsis are those needle-less injection ports that collect bugs before they are flushed into your veins. And get that: The main purpose and justification of the everything needle-less in today's hospital is to prevent medical personnel injuries!

So, 30,000 people die every year because few incompetent nurses might prick themselves with needles. "We have the best medical care in the world".

And (it would appear) the antibiotic resistance of a number of the so-called 'superbugs' derives directly from routine use of antibiotic supplements in animal rearing. The US lags behind much of the rest of the world in restricting or abandoning this practice.

"... Taking guns out of their hands will reduce violence. Taking guns away from well-off, elderly women? Not so much."

Another case of open-mouth-insert-foot. Where do you think the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter got the guns he used?

I've led a very sheltered life. I only knew two people from the small rural town in northern New York State where I grew up who were killed by guns. One by accident, the other by an enraged, jilted teenaged boyfriend. I've never known anyone who was killed by an instrument of violence other than a gun. I've had rifles and shotguns in my hands as a reckless teenager and done reckless things with them. Thinking back about those things I wish I had never had the guns in my hands.

The other part about the Sandy Hook tragedy that we need better solutions to is the treatment of the mentally ill.

Jebus Jud appealing to character here? Let me make it clear to you Larry and every one else, I do not support guns matter of fact I hate them as much as you do but the guns are not the problem, people are the problem and no matter what you do unless society starts taking care of ALL people and include all people into society as equally respected citizens the issue will remain. What's the bet that just like in South Africa the gun violence in the States is also mostly by black people? Another group that was treated as less equal for how many years? The dehumanizing to men was done by men change that and you change the world not by removing guns!

Laurence A. Moran

Larry Moran is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

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Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake.
Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.
Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.